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September 8, 2016

Let’s discuss Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (FINALE).

[heavy drinking intensifies]

Let me ask you something: why is Sam in this game?

No, seriously.
Why is Sam in this game?

[remorse intensifies]

Uncharted 4:
A Thief’s End is -- if not the capper to the entire franchise -- the last
chapter of Nathan Drake’s story. It’s a
way to say goodbye to the characters that have run wild for nearly an entire
decade. It’s supposed to be the
culmination of everything Naughty Dog has to offer -- the zenith, given the
resources and knowledge behind it. The
phrase “greatness from small beginnings” is one repeated a few times throughout
the games, so one would think that they’d deliver on that conclusively with
this finale…even though it’s very likely we’ll be getting a new and/or rebooted
entry somewhere down the line, because AAA franchises. But whatever.

Drake’s
Fortune started out with three core characters: “the hero” Nate, his mentor
and partner in crime Sully, and the intrepid TV personality Elena. We can argue all day and all night about
whether or not any of them are good, but what’s really important is that
they’re key players throughout the overarching story (such as it is). Well, in theory, at least; Sully spends
nearly all of Among Thieves out of
the picture, having decided that he’s too old for this shit…but not old enough
to walk out on the two adventures that follow.
Elena the Ever-Scorned has to fight for her right to earn screen time in
every game except the first, despite being Nate’s main squeeze. Still, I can buy that Naughty Dog is pushing
these three as the primary trio. Chloe
and Cutter were unceremoniously given the boot for A Thief’s End, after all.

So here’s my question: if Sully and Elena are so
important -- to Nate and the story overall -- then why do they both get
sidelined so that A Thief’s End, the fourth and final entry in the franchise
as we know it, can introduce an entirely new, never-before-mentioned
brother?

In a game (and franchise) full of mistakes, Sam is
by far the biggest of them. And that’s
saying something. Back in third grade, I
took heat for introducing a new character within the last few pages of my
story. Obviously it’s not a one-to-one
comparison with A Thief’s End, but
that was a rookie mistake I made when I was nine, and didn’t have millions of dollars behind me. Also, my story was a dumb adventure about
cows going to space. It wasn’t exactly
top-shelf art -- though I guess given the nature of Uncharted and the AAA delusions of blockbuster grandeur, I was
already qualified to be the lead writer and director of the franchise. But I digress.

It’s obvious why Sam is in the game. He’s there so that Nate can finally have a
consistent, well-defined, socially-acceptable motivation: in order to save his
long-lost older brother from the throes of a villainous drug lord, he has to go
out and find an ancient treasure. Sam is
also there to try and provide an anchor to Nate -- some means of helping the audience
understand what makes him tick. So it
follows that we’re given a couple of flashback chapters to explain how two
rough-and-tumble orphans ended up becoming the Drakes, and treasure hunters to
boot. Well, sort of. It doesn’t really explain how they actually
become brilliant, well-read, well-trained explorers in peak physical and mental
condition, but who cares? The important
thing is that there’s a new character to help make Nate into more of a
character. Well, in theory.

Here’s problem number one. Sam is basically a carbon copy of Nate.

The UC games
have a habit of putting Nate together with one other character (not all the
time, but more than enough to take notice).
Most of the dialogue between the pair consists of quips and one-liners, unless
they’re trying to help the player progress through a section of the game. It’s not what I’d call an ideal situation --
and it becomes less ideal thanks to A
Thief’s End. I was always under the
impression that you should put different characters
next to each other, so that they could play off of one another and accent their
unique traits. Naughty Dog didn’t seem
to get the memo, because looks aside, Nate and Sam are nearly indistinguishable
from one another.

They’ve got the same physical ability. They’ve got the same skill set. They’ve got the same knowledge, though Sam
seems to know more about pirates. But
critically, they have the same general dialogue; it’s almost exclusively a
bunch of shitty quips and awkward jokes.
And sure, not all of those lines have to be gut busters, but I’m
hard-pressed to think of a single one that even put a smile on my face. Not only does it come off as awkward and
cringe-inducing, but there’s just so much of it that it wore me out an hour
into the brothers’ reunion. If that.

And yeah, I know.
Not every conversation between them has to be some heartfelt connection,
or a way to tackle the drama in their day-to-day lives. As a little brother, I get that; you have to
meet a shitty joke quota while also sniping with the occasional insult. But neither I nor my brother would dream
about doing that for upwards of 11 hours; at some point, you have to mix it
up. Or just leave the room.

And while UC4
does mix it up eventually, it’s
too little too late. Not to mention that
it’s not enough to counter the overwhelming amounts of nothing that the dialogue becomes by way of repetition. How many times does Sam call Nate fat because
something collapsed when he touched it?
Too many. (Side note: is
that why they took out Doughnut Drake?
Because it would’ve made for some nasty implications if Sam made those
fat jokes to a morbidly obese Nate?)

I guess what I’m getting at here is that after
four games, I’m still struggling to see Nate as anything above passable (on a
good day). I’m not even willing to go
that far anymore thanks to the devs doubling down with Sam. I thought that the interaction of the two
would bring out the best in both, but it basically just amounts to that gag in The Simpsons where there are multiple
Duffmen scheduled to work at the ballpark that day.

The first conclusion that comes to mind when it
comes to Sam is that he’s solely there to retroactively build Nate -- like they
realized that they couldn’t do another redo
of the same general story with the character (or plot) that they had. “It’s the story you never knew!” Or something to that effect; even though UC3 pinned Sully as the lynchpin behind
Nate’s turn to treasure-hunting thievery, UC4
runs that back and reveals that it was all thanks to Sam. Honestly, I’m inclined to think that that was
a bad decision; for starters, it’s a surefire way to undermine the relationship
that the canon’s been nursing for the better part of a decade, and a disservice
to Sully -- who I’d argue is the best character in the whole wretched
franchise.

But don’t get me wrong. If there’s anyone who’s undermined by Sam’s
presence in the game, it’s Nate. Because
actually, it turns out that Sam meant
so much to Nate, and the little brother practically clung to his sibling’s
shin. And actually, it turns out that they had to run away from the orphanage
forever because…uh…the old lady whose house they snuck into died of natural
causes, but Sam assumed that the cops would take them in anyway even though an
autopsy would’ve cleared them of guilt.
I mean, granted, Sam was probably afraid that whatever crimes he’d
committed in the past would’ve caught up to him and forced him to be locked up
tight, but that’s not a definitive reason and it doesn’t explain why he had to
drag Nate into a life of thievery.

…I just realized that I should’ve had a safe word
whenever it’s time to talk about Uncharted. It would’ve helped immensely.

But anyway.
Actually, it turns out that it
was Sam’s idea to abandon everything they ever knew so they could become
treasure hunters and honor their mom’s legacy -- so rather than give Nate
agency or any say in his future fortunes (let alone the role in the plot), he’s
pretty much reduced to a peon doing things just
‘cause. And actually, it turns out that Sam was such a big influence in Nate’s
life that he’s willing to drop everything -- including Elena, FOR THE THIRD
CONSECUTIVE TIME -- to go try and find treasure, even though there
are plenty of other ways to keep his brother safe from drug lords (but hey,
anything for a barely-justified motivation to do “one more job” before retiring
for good).

And actually,
it turns out that Sam lied the whole time to get the treasure for
himself. And Nate too, maybe. But mostly for himself.

That’s the big twist of the game, I guess. It kind
of got me, but only because I thought that Naughty Dog was being serious
with its shitty writing. So going by
what Sam said, his blabbing about Avery’s pirate treasure convinced Hector
Alcazar to believe wholeheartedly that the treasure exists, and to desire it
for himself. So he tasks Sam with
finding it within three months, or else the elder Drake will bite it hard -- somehow.
Like, it comes off as an empty threat because Sam makes it out of the
country with ease (and indeed, continues to travel around the world), so I
found it hard to believe that Alcazar’s men could even find him, let alone kill
him.

Then main villain Rafe Adler reveals that Sam lied
to get Nate to go along with the treasure hunt; in reality, Rafe used his money
to bail Sam out of jail without a fight, all for the sake of finding the
treasure for himself. In fact, Alcazar
has actually been dead for six months by the time the game starts. So in a nutshell, Sam was basically hired by
Rafe to do what he couldn’t over the course of 15 years -- but Sam decided to
play turncoat, track down Nate, and drag him into the adventure as a way to honor
their globe-trotting mother’s legacy get rich.

*sigh* I’m done.
I’m just so done with this
franchise.

I mean, I’m already technically done with it by
virtue of finishing the four console games.
But I’m sick of thinking about it.
Every time I do, I’m given another reason to hate it, what it stands
for, and video games in general. It’s
like…were they even trying? There’s a
part of me that wishes they’d come out and say “nope, we just phoned it in” --
because if this is the best they can do, then I’m about ready to weep until my
body turns to powder. Just…every last
part of me, turned into dust. Gone. And that’d be more pleasant than having to
deal with UC or Naughty Dog ever
again.

--Why did Sam feel like he needed to lie to
Nate? Did he really think that his
little brother and devout follower wouldn’t leap at the chance to find Avery’s
treasure? Or did he just preemptively
assume that Nate would refuse him, not knowing that he’d abandon Elena at the
drop of a hat without a justifiable
motivation?

--Why does Nate have a shit fit when the lie is
revealed? In true UC fashion, characters flip-flop on their position all the time,
and that includes Nate bouncing between “WE HAVE TO GET THE TREASURE NAO” and
“NO WAIT I’M SCARED LET’S FIND A DIFFERENT PATH”. Why is he so mad that he’s been lied to when
he’s on that journey because of the lie he told Elena? Why is he so mad that he’s been dragged out
of suburbia when he was furiously trying to relive “the glory days” in his
attic and daydreaming about adventure while talking with his wife?

--Speaking of which, does Nate really, truly care
about his wife, knowing that he ditches her THREE TIMES (technically four) to
chase after treasure that might not even exist?

--But getting back on topic, why is it that
nothing genuinely comes from the revealed lie?
Why is there neither true fallout nor a heartfelt reconciliation between
the brothers who totally care about each
other, you guys?

--Why didn’t Rafe bring in Nate and Sam? This franchise suggests that the only ones
who can solve ancient mysteries and figure out dormant puzzles are the Drake
brothers, so why not increase your chances of success by putting Nate on the
payroll, especially when doing so means helping him do what he loves while
supporting his home life?

--As a corollary: Is Rafe an idiot? How do you spend 15 years looking for
treasure and turn up nothing, even when the next clue is basically right under
your nose yet inexplicably left untouched in your search again and again? Further, why
would you spend 15 years looking for treasure when you have a major company
behind you? Okay, sure, you want to
prove that you’re not a trust fund baby and can earn something for yourself,
but why not use your company to maximize profits instead of funding a wild
goose chase and coming off like a crazy person?
How much money have you wasted just to try and prove a point? That point being that you’re unfit to run a
company?

--Why do Nate and Sully, two characters who seem
to know pretty much every criminal and malcontent in the warlord, not know
about Alcazar? Why do they never even
bother to do so much as run a Google search?
Why does Sully agree to a big heist at an auction before trying to
figure out a way to safeguard Sam from Alcazar’s theoretical hitmen without the need for a big whompin’
treasure? Is a big whompin’ treasure the
only things these guys understand?

--Why is this game padded as hell? That’s true of UC2 and UC3 as well, but
it reaches a fever pitch with UC4;
after all, how many times do Nate and crew act like the treasure is within
reach, only to the clue du jour to simply reveal the location of the next
clue? How many times can you string
players along on a little scavenger hunt without any payoff? I only ask, because…

--How did Avery, Tew, and the other pirates
accomplish anything in this
game? How did they possibly amass the
funds, resources, and manpower needed to not only construct Libertalia, but
also every puzzle- and trap-laden location Nate visits? Are we seriously supposed to accept that men
and women from centuries ago were able to travel the entire globe, from
continent to continent, and successfully set up their trail of breadcrumbs
without the help of modern technology?
Further, are we supposed to accept that the pirates were able to build
machinery and mechanisms as advanced as what we have today before America even
became a twinkle in George Washington’s eye?

--Why does Rafe hire a bunch of gunmen to try and
find Avery’s treasure? Why not bring in
the sharpest and most enlightened minds money can buy -- like, say, experts in
the field of history or anthropology? I
know Nadine Ross was looking to restock the war chest, but why were they the ones Rafe brought in
first? Did he expect them to be valuable
consultants? Or was it just so that Nate
could have enemies “on even ground” to shoot down?

--Why is Nadine basically invincible throughout
every hand-to-hand encounter she has with Nate?
I get that she’s a trained soldier and Nate in-game is lucky to even
manage a basic shuffle, but how infuriating is it that you’re only capable of
getting hurt by a boss because the game says so? Also, are we really supposed to believe that
Nate, the guy who’s punched out countless enemies before -- of varying size,
strength, and skill -- can hardly touch one person until the game gives the OK?

--Why do these games only have the villain dynamic
of “main baddie and his/her helper”? Why
do these games have villains that barely leave an impression, and are
constantly undermined by their own reckless stupidity?

--Why does this game -- if not the whole franchise
-- end with a poorly-implemented sword fight, featuring gameplay mechanics that
A) completely invalidate the “skills” you’ve “honed” over the course of UC4, and B) have zero precedence and
will presumably never have precedence again?

--When Sam splits off from the rest of the group
in the last act to try and get his hands on the treasure, what makes him think
he’ll succeed? Setting aside the fact
that he’ll be walking straight into an ambush by Rafe’s goons, how does he
expect to transport countless riches?
Given that (at the moment) he’s without a boat, a plane, or even a
truck, is he seriously implying that he’s going to carry all of that treasure
in his pockets? Or, given that he says
he wants to “see it through to the end”, did he just want to head into the
ambush to look at Avery’s treasure?

--Who thought it was a good idea to feature a
gameplay aspect where Nate has to take a jeep’s winch and hook it up to
something to help it roll out of mud? Is
this the pulse-pounding, epic gameplay that the franchise thrives on? Or would that be the sequences where you have
to tug on stuff with the winch to pull it down?

--Why is the epilogue so sugary sweet that it
threatened to make all my teeth fall out?
Why does the guy who lied, cheated, and stole his way to the top
(relatively speaking, since every UC game
puts Nate back at the status quo of neutrality) get to live in luxury at a
beachside paradise? Is it because he’s
been coded as Jesus in this game? But if
he really is Jesus, then wouldn’t that imply that he sacrificed something
crucial to him -- his life or otherwise -- as a means to help others? Why is he being rewarded with a cushy life, a
savvy teenage daughter, and a loyal wife when any acts of altruism he’s done
happened offscreen in a time skip?

--I’m all for a good female character, but how
cloying is it that Cassie Drake (no relation to Cassie
Cage, because monogenre what a coincidence) is introduced almost
right off the bat as a sassy yet brilliant and gifted adventurer, to the point
where she shows up on the cover of a major magazine? Is being better than everyone else just her
birthright as a carrier of the Drake genes?

--I’ve said before that I don’t buy into/care
about stuff like the spinning totem at the end of Inception, or the
“Alfred’s hallucination” theory from The
Dark Knight Rises, but can we just make it official canon that Nate and
Sam both died while trying to escape from Avery’s exploding ship? I mean, they both end up heading into the
light (because delusions of cinematic grandeur), so maybe we can have these
guys die and the perfection in the epilogue is all based on a heaven-born
fantasy? Can we just have one consequence
that doesn’t get run back or ignored?

--Did Naughty Dog not jerk off enough with one
inclusion of Crash Bandicoot? Why do we have to play through it -- and the
same level, no less -- twice? Was it
just to pad out the game? Was it to
pointlessly delay a limp-wristed reveal?
Or did they really need to keep on strokin’?

And many more questions remain…but you get the
point. I know I do. And yet, despite those questions, bear in
mind that I still think UC4 is the second
best of these games. That should
tell you more than enough.

The graphics are good, and I like the idea of
unraveling the mysteries of the past.
But that’s about where my praise for the game -- and UC as a whole -- comes to an end. The story in UC4 is a complete mess, overstuffed with empty content with
characters that are either blander than cold, watered-down oatmeal, or about as
consistent in characterization as a Mexican jumping bean. You might as well take a sledgehammer to the
suspension of disbelief, for all the good that it’ll do you here. Momentum alone isn’t enough to save the game,
because between the bland action and countless plot contrivances (Naughty Dog
Teleportation™ is in full effect yet again, putting characters major and minor exactly where they need to be for the
plot to happen), I have an easier time believing that a baboon can chuck a
mountain than anything that happens throughout what could generously be called a story.

And none of that would matter -- none of it! -- if
the gameplay was there. But it’s
not. UC4,
like its predecessors before it, tries to be all of the genres and ends up
being none of them. As the symbol of the
monogenre, it’s a shapeless pile of sludge that neither commits to nor succeeds
at anything. Lame gunplay, shallow
stealth, tedious and inconsistent platforming, busywork puzzles, and setpieces
fundamentally no different than Crash
Bandicoot. Not to mention that the
repetition of ALL of those elements -- in this one game and across the
franchise -- negates whatever thrills there are to be had. It’s all a bunch of smoke and mirrors --
except the “smoke” is no denser than steam from a hot bowl of soup, and the
“mirrors” are riddled with cracks and stains.

And none of that
would matter if they just gave us a likable main character. But he’s not.
Nathan Drake is awful, and his awfulness is only highlighted the longer
you play as him. Even if you ignore the
fact that he’s in stereo via his brother Sam in UC4, at best he’s just a bland stand-in for escapism and wish
fulfillment. He’s boring to look at,
boring to watch, and boring to listen to -- yet he’s apparently the greatest
human being who ever lived, capable of doing no wrong.

And when he is
called out for doing wrong -- just
barely called out -- it comes off as a slap on the wrist. You don’t fucking lie to and abandon your
wife FOR A THIRD TIME and get to have her come back to save your ass. You just don’t. And yet Nate and Elena still have time to
start getting intimate with each other mere seconds after another near-death
experience. Like…seriously, it seems as
if the only thing keeping these two together is a gallon of adrenaline shot
right into their veins. With a bloodlust
cocktail to wash it all down.

It’s sad, really.
Because you know what? Sully’s
pretty much the proof of what Uncharted should
have been.

Sully is, in my opinion, the only good character
in this entire franchise. (Well, except
maybe for Cutter, but Sully’s here more often.)
Yes, Sully is a criminal too.
Yes, he also kills a lot of people -- probably more than we’ll ever
know, since he has a few decades on Nate.
Yes, he’s often in it for the treasure.
But you know what? At least he’s
honest about it. At least the game is honest about it. Sully’s a thieving scumbag who’s either in or
pushing retirement age, but there’s no pretension about him being a hero or a
good guy. He’s in it for the money, and
is only not in it for the money when
it means caring for the people within arm’s reach (Nate, Elena, etc.) Sully doesn’t give a shit about preserving
history -- and in his case, that’s fine.

So no, it’s not about me projecting and hating a
game because “HARUMPH, THIS GAME DOESN’T HAVE NOBLE HEROES! 0/10 WORST GAME EVER!” Remember, I’m the guy who has a secret fondness
for Carl Johnson, a guy who killed his best friend on a moment’s notice -- and
I’m the guy who thinks the crime lord D-Mob from Def Jam: Fight for New York is super-rad, irrespective of his
ability to unleash a quadruple power bomb.
It’s not about being a hero, or being a villain. It’s not about being virtuous, or being
greedy. It’s about being a good character.
Gameplay-wise and especially
story-wise, UC doesn’t have what it
takes to satisfy me on that front. And
that, my friends, is precisely why I hate this entire franchise.

But it’s still better than Watch Dogs. Not by much, but
it’s still better.

Now look.
It should go without saying, but all of this is my opinion. It’s not an objective report, nor is it to be
taken as some undeniable law, punishable by death for anyone who disagrees with
me. If you enjoyed this game or any of
the others, then great. More power to
you. But I didn’t, and I hope that you
can accept that. Everything I’ve written
thus far has only been a way for me to explain why I hate Uncharted, not why
everyone should hate it. It might seem like that sometimes, but it’s
not intentional. I just got lost in the
throes of passion at some points -- as you can guess.

With that said, I hope that anyone reading this
does a few things for me (besides refraining from writing scathing comments just
because I’m not slobbering over Nathan Drake).
One: stop. Two: take a deep
breath. Three: think things through. Four: ask yourself the important
questions. “Did I really enjoy this
game?” And more importantly, “Why?” I’m not asking for an answer like a stern
teacher demanding you to hand in your essay.
I’m saying it because I want you to reason and internalize your position
-- with evidence, with personal experience, with whatever. Think carefully about why you like the game,
and how good you find it.

I’m not asking for much, I think. Nor am I asking for people to agree with
me. What I want is for people to avoid
blindly following or supporting the things they profess to love -- UC well among them. It’s not like I’m accusing everyone of being
too sycophantic, but there are people out there. As an example: just look at this video that
takes the franchise to task. More
specifically, look at the comments; there are a lot of them that either get
tied up with semantics, miss the point of the argument, or just plain insult
the critic because he took shots at UC --
AKA part of a multimillion-dollar franchise that can stand a little criticism
from one corner of the internet. I’m a
firm believer in humanity’s worth and potential, but seeing “fans” go nuts
trying to pardon a work makes me want to…well, you saw the opening line, didn’t
you?

Again, it’s fine if you like UC, or any game, or any piece of art. But you have to be willing to accept that
it’s not perfect, and be able to know why it works (if it works) instead of
letting it completely dominate your psyche.
Saying stuff like “You’re only hating the game because everyone else
likes it” in the face of a lengthy and thought-out argument is like saying “I
have no witty response and no ability to think critically, so I’m just going to
insult you as a way to poorly play the white knight”. And more importantly, it leads to a bigger
problem down the line.

If you believe that something like UC is perfect or high-quality, then how
can you possibly expect something better?
How can you possibly demand it?
How can you justify that you deserve it?

As a Kamen
Rider fan, I know what it’s like. I
got into the franchise with Kamen Rider
OOO, and thought it was incredible -- and I’ve been watching the other
installments to find the show that’s either as good as or better than OOO.
That hasn’t happened yet, but I’m hoping that it does happen
someday. (Maybe it’ll
beEx-Aid?) If I started blindly accepting every
successive series as DA BEST, then I’d be lying to and hurting myself. Instead
of seeing the individual qualities -- bad or good -- of each installment, I’d
basically just be watching and clapping my hands like a braindead seal at the
sight of each new Rider Kick. It’d be
love, but it wouldn’t be genuine. Just
superficial. Just passive.

I wouldn’t be willing to ask for something better
-- for something to achieve the great heights I know the series is capable
of. True, there’s no way my pleas will
ever reach the showrunners or Toei -- thanks to the ocean between us, as an
example -- but at least I’d be able to find some sense of personal
satisfaction, and even growth. “Hey, Kamen Rider Drive is pretty freakin’
good! But I have problems with this, and
this, and this.” Or “Man, Kiva has some serious issues. It’s a shame, because this, and this, and
this are really strong.” It’s how I
learn to appreciate stories as well as judge them -- by thinking critically
about the strengths and weaknesses of the media I consume.

I’m biased on that front because, as I’ve said, my
dream is to be a writer. I wouldn’t be
much of one if I couldn’t dissect why a story works or doesn’t work. With that in mind, you don’t have to be (or
want to be) a writer, or developer, or anyone in any creative medium to want to
see the best out of fiction. And no,
it’s not even entirely about analyzing (or over-analyzing) what makes a story
tick.

Even if you don’t want to dive too deep, you still
have more than enough potential to know what’s good and what’s bad. Own up to that shit. If there’s a negative, call it out. If there’s a positive, celebrate it. Don’t play blind or deaf to any tale, whether
you like it or not -- because otherwise, you’re sending a message that you only
want the worst out of your stories. That
you only deserve the worst.

And you know what?
Against all odds, I think Naughty Dog feels the same way.

For the time being, UC is dead. It’s died of
natural causes, and can now rest in peace having done its job. We’re truly at the end of an era; the days
when AAA games could get by with the stuff pulled in Nathan Drake’s adventures
are winding down, if not over already. We
live in a world where indie games are blowing away the competition for a
fraction of the price -- from Journey to
Inside, and everything in
between. Storytelling in something as scornful as video games is plenty
possible thanks to the Telltale brand and individual projects like Life is Strange. The breadth of games has expanded with titles
like The Witcher 3 and Xenoblade Chronicles X. The challenge is there with entries in the Souls series. The mechanical complexity is there with any
number of fighting games. Platinum Games
exists.

There’s always going to be a place in the world
for AAA fare and the monogenre. But
we’re at a saturation point; we’ve seen what the worst of the bunch has to
offer. Is UC among the worst? That’s
debatable. Still, the important thing is
that what worked in 2007, or 2009, or 2011, or even here in 2016 isn’t going to
work forever. It might not even work
anymore. I can’t confirm anything, but
considering the praise lobbed at The Last
of Us, I suspect that Naughty Dog understands they’ve hit the limit of what
they can do with Nate and crew.

Maybe they’ll reboot the franchise somewhere down
the line -- either with his daughter Cassie as the new lead (to play to the
call for female protagonists), or as a prequel starring a young Sully. It’d be a chance to start fresh while cribbing
on the brand. I’m not entirely on-board
with that, given the baggage…but I’m not entirely against it, as long as there
are substantial changes.

All I know is that the future’s looking
brighter. Stupid AAA fare has long since
drawn ire, and will continue to do so -- not just because of people online
trying to play contrarian, but because there are real complaints worth
raising. Is it any wonder that Assassin’s Creed, a franchise that once
rode high on the backs of diehard fans, opted to skip out on its annual release
this year? Do you think that would’ve
happened if people were willing to just suck down whatever a big company dished
out? No.
Change is coming, and the companies that can’t adapt to that change will
wither and crumble.

How fitting it is, then, that UC -- a series half-built on finding ancient relics of the past --
is a relic in its own right. Whether you
love the franchise or not, I think we can all agree that there’s so much more
that can be done with video games.
Anyone with a games collection of even two games understands that much.
Limitless possibilities and potential await, and we don’t have to
experience it from over the shoulder of a generic action hero. We can do more. We can have more. We can ask for more. And without a doubt, we can wait for
more. More is coming -- and it’ll be
more than enough to surpass UC, even
if you’re a diehard fan. Mark my words.

Well, probably
mark my words. After all, I’m the
king of wishful thinking.